This invention relates to an apparatus for temporarily storing drugs prepared according to prescriptions presented by doctors, sorting them according to patients, and transporting them.
Drugs are prepared according to prescriptions presented by doctors. In a drug division of a big hospital, powder drugs and tablets prepared by pharmacists are usually put in buckets that run on a conveyor and collected to one place. The drugs thus collected are inspected and handed to patients.
Powder drugs and tablets are usually packed mechanically with a packing machine. But some tablets are handed to patients as they are packed by the manufacturers. On the other hand, compresses and ointments, which are usually stored on shelves, are taken out of the shelves by the amounts specified in each specification and put in the bucket on the conveyor corresponding to the patient specified in the prescription.
Since drugs are put into the bucket corresponding to each patient by pharmacists, wrong drugs are often put into the bucket.
Also, it may take a long time to prepare drugs for a certain patient. In such a case, not only the bucket for this patient but all the other buckets on the same conveyor have to be stopped. Thus, operation efficiency extremely drops because preparation for other patents' drugs, which can be otherwise prepared in a shorter time (especially if powder drugs are to be prepared), is also delayed.
It is an object of this invention to provide a device which can temporarily store prepared drugs and mechanically deliver them into designated buckets that are moving on a predetermined feed path and which can thus collect drugs into predetermined buckets with high accuracy and transport such buckets with high efficiency.